Heat therapy via corn bags

Corn bags have got to be one of my favorite "I sort of know you" gifts. Well, for women, anyway...For instance, I gave corn bags to everyone I worked with. We'd already had a Secret Santa gift exchange at the Christmas party, but especially since I was leaving, I wanted to give them all something to show that I appreciated them, but not anything that would make them feel bad about not reciprocating.

These are my standard corn bags - something like 7x20 inches - cut 2, serge them together on all sides (last short side after filling with dried corn). I make the bags themselves out of muslin (cheaper), then make nice print covers (just an overlap style). Flannel is nicest, but any woven works fine. In the above picture, the brown paw prints on the far right and the dog print on the bottom were both purchased for this purpose. I bought one yard of each on Black Friday and got four covers out of each. The rainbow paw prints in the middle was a stash remnant, the penguin and music notes flannels on the left were leftovers from other projects, and the Nutcracker woven was longtime stash. I'd bought it for an apron for myself, but let's face it - I just don't wear aprons. It had sat around long enough and was begging to be used. These were an experiment in a different design. I got the idea on the PR message boards. I forget what size exactly I made them - 10 or 10.5 inches square, I think - serged them on three sides, then sewed lines to divide them into four approximately equal channels. I filled each channel about as full as it could be and still be able to serge the top closed, then made overlap style covers for these as well. I thought they might be better for localized heat therapy than the bigger ones - we'll see...

Mostly final Christmas presents....

Yep, definitely the year of the pillowcases!
Top left: singleton for my good friend (the nurse) - only a singleton because she has another gift, shown at the end of the post. I had enough of the music notes left for one pillowcase and one corn bag cover. I paired this with a mottled red flannel that came from my very first Black Friday at JAF.

Top right: Another Black Friday purchase from a few years back - my son loves penguins, so I finally used some to make him one. (It went over very well!)

Bottom left: A Black Friday purchase from this year, also paired with the mottled red (I have a lot of it left). I made two of these - one for Thing 2, and one for a nephew.

Bottom right: A Black Friday purchase this year, again paired with mottled red. This is a set of two, for my friend from vet school. I have enough of the paw print left for matching PJ pants, though she will have to wait until next year....


Both Black Friday purchases this year, paired with stashed white flannel. The snowflake pattern is a set of two, for my aunt. There's enough left for PJ pants - I just ran out of time. Next year....The hearts/stars is a singleton, because the print is directional, and I would not have enough for matching PJ pants (birthday gift) otherwise.

And I know that I said this was the year of the pillowcases, but not everyone needs pillowcases. Besides, this has been nearly done for ages. All I had to do was finally find the right ribbing for the cuffs. Fortunately, I got this done and mailed out before the movers came and packed it!

I still have a few gifts to go, but time ran out, and hey! We were moving! Cut me some slack! I have two more kid PJ pants and two adult PJ pants and we'll be officially done with Christmas. Oh, wait - and a "housecoat" for a greyhound - which is combo birthday present/"Thanks for dogsitting for me" present. There will be pictures forthcoming....

Now I just have to find where my pattern weights got packed, along with the PJ flannels....

The Christmas of the Pillowcase

We are moving the week of Christmas, so as you can imagine, things have been a little crazy here. Partly due to that, I decided to keep the gifts simple this year. Fun yet practical. This is the first installment of Christmas pillowcases! (Well, really the second....the first ones were here.)
This is all flannel from JAF on Black Friday. There is a matching pillowcase for the penguins in the front, and there are two more of the music notes with white trim. It pretty much became that adults are getting a matching set of pillowcases, and kids are getting single cases. Pillowcases are also a great way to wrap awkward gifts! (Or just any gift, especially if you are semi-wrapping-impaired....) The white and red tie-dye flannels are from my stash from my very first Black Friday flannel haul, and the black was in my stash from a recent purchase....or maybe last year's Black Friday? I can't remember.

Anyway, there are at least 3 more sets of pillowcases and at least five more single pillowcases to make. I'm cutting most of those tonight, although it is not crucial that they be done before Christmas. I tend to mail things a bit late....oops!

I am also making more corn bags and flannel covers. I'll have to finally put up some pictures when I finish these. The bags are long rectangles made of muslin, with serged edges, filled with dried feed corn. The flannel covers are simply long envelope style covers. You heat them up in the microwave for 2-3 minutes, then enjoy warmth on your feet/shoulders/whatever. I also made a few square ones with separate channels to fill with corn, which may be more useful for trying to do heat therapy on specific body parts, like knees. Not sure how those will compare....

Finally finished!

My older son has a Didj, which has become a beloved possession. It frequently goes in the car with us, but until now, there has been no case for it. And so it gets carried, stuffed in backpacks, etc. The Didj itself has survived fairly well, but one of the game cartridges has been unfortunately lost, possibly never to be seen again. So I wanted to construct a padded case, preferably with a zippered closure, and zippered pockets for storing headphones and game cartridges. I suppose it might have been wise to also have room to take the recharger, but I decided that was just too bulky to go on smaller trips and would simply be put in an overnight bag for longer trips. My son picked a marble fabric from my stash, and I took the dimensions of his Didj, added some ease, and went to work.

I decided to skip a lining and just make my own quilted fabric, with two layers of Warm&Natural batting in between the cotton, for more protection. I quilted a large enough piece to allow for some shrinkage but still cut all my pieces from it afterward. After cutting each outer piece, I bound each edge in black nylon lycra. Then I cut the pocket pieces from non-quilted fabric and used black zippers from my stash.

So...from the side, showing the webbing straps (I thought that fabric straps looked too girly) and one of the zippered pockets.

And then the inside, showing the outer zipper and with the Didj inside. As you can see, either I over compensated with ease, or I screwed up some measurements, as there is definitely more than enough room inside for the Didj. Oh, well! I also put a zipper pull on for easier zipping/unzipping - just a small piece of black nylon lycra tied through the zipper pull.The only thing I don't like is that I should have rounded the edges of the main piece before binding it. Once I had the pieces sewn together, I had to trim the inner points to make the case look better. Otherwise, the points stuck out too much. So now I have those raw edges on the inside, which I was trying to avoid. Oh, well....so it's not perfect. If I ever make another one, I'll fix that.

The important thing is that it is almost exactly what I was after, and my son loves it. And now his game cartridges are all secure with his Didj!

November birthdays....

November is a great month to have a birthday. My DH (fittingly) was born on Nov. 10, the Marine Corps birthday. I had intended to have another KS 2935 shirt ready for him, but it just wasn't happening. So instead, I (fittingly) bought him the BluRay boxed set of the HBO miniseries The Pacific. (It worked out to sort of be a birthday present for me, as well - I'm a Veteran's Day baby.) We've been watching that at night, and we just finished it the other night. Now we just have the Special Features disk to go.

My brother was born Nov. 13, and I have told him for years that he was the worst birthday present I ever received. :) Feel the love, right? Well, this year, instead of the traditional boxers or PJ pants, I decided it was time to make him a Hawaiian shirt. I found a loud rayon challis on sale at HF a few months ago, and I cut it out during my time in the lab (while waiting for stuff to finish so that I could do the next stuff). I have since discovered that rayon challis would benefit from starch, and that next time, I won't cut it out, wad it up in a bag, and let it sit for months before sewing. (I had to recut both collar pieces because they wouldn't fit the interfacing pieces.) Oh, well....he still loves the shirt and tells me that it'll be perfect for the office Christmas party at the bowling alley. This is KS 2935, size XL. It's not perfect, but it's pretty good, and more importantly, it's done!

My best friend from high school has been the recipient of many sets of scrubs. And she loves the Peanuts gang. So when I find Peanuts fabric on sale, I get at least enough to make her a scrub shirt. I don't remember where I got this fabric - maybe WM before they got rid of their fabric - but it was cut out for over a year before it was finished (it was supposed to be her birthday present last year - oops!). With the Hawaiian shirt also taking orange serger thread, I decided to finally finish this and get it out of the UFO box, just in time for her pre-birthday visit. Hooray! This is M9123, size S.

Halloween costumes and more!

Things 1&2 gave me no help on Halloween planning until literally a week before Halloween. Argh! And then, they totally wouldn't fall in with my "Thing 1/Thing 2" costume idea. Bummer! Instead, Thing 1 wanted to be a penguin....again....but this year he definitely needed a new size. And Thing 2 decided he would be Batman. Obviously, I already had the penguin costume (S3639). I checked my records, and since I had made size child XS the last time, I decided to make size M this time. But since the hood runs small (or my child's head runs big), I made that a size L. Since I've made the costume before, there were really no surprises here. Although, looking at the picture, I'm not sure that he'll be able to wear this again next year, should he still be in love with penguins....

For Thing 2, I found S3595. He is 4, but the size 3 seemed to run big enough (except that the shirt was quite tight - maybe his potbelly is bigger than I thought, or maybe the fleece wasn't stretchy enough). I made a few changes - I didn't like the applique on it, so I substituted the Batman applique from Make Them Yourself's Reversible Cape. Much better! I also changed the mask to be a full face mask - it made it easier for me to get the effect my DH liked. For the cape, I added two small tabs with heavy duty magnets to fasten the cape, but it didn't work too well. I think the cape was just too long and heavy for the magnets, despite being such a thin interlock. I'll change it out for snaps later.

I also used scraps from a previous blanket to make a cat mat. This is simply two layers of fleece with two layers of batting sandwiched between, then bound with black fleece. We'll see if this is as popular with the kitties as simply curling up on the blankets tends to be!

And in the spirit of getting stuff out of the sewing room and making room on the shelves to get all my fabric off the floor, I made another fleece blanket as a Christmas present. I found this Bugs Bunny fleece on a clearance table and thought it'd be perfect for a friend whose husband loves Looney Tunes. (The backing is black, just like the binding.) Since the fleece is bulky, I took the time to make the blanket now. It's long enough to cover a twin bed with a few inches to spare, and it's the full width of the fleece. Great for snuggling under! Now it's in the gift closet, waiting for a trip in that direction.

Next up: November birthday presents....

Not much to see here....

But I did get three flannel pillowcases done out of stash...Stash that's been around a few years, at that! And for a closer look at the fabric...

Those are for three sisters for Christmas. There was talk of getting musical prints, but then I looked at my shelves and said, "These things need to go first!" So that's what I cut...besides, flannel pillowcases are really nice in winter.

And then I started in on this project:

Scary, isn't it? I tore apart my sewing room to Get Rid of Stuff I Don't Need. Which in turn led me to find UFOs so old I'd forgotten I ever had them! Like this:

Which is being made out of this:

And since it's so cool and is going so well, and since I already had all the strips cut out, I figured it'd be a good "in front of the TV" project. So this one can stay. Two other crochet projects are so close to being finished that I'm keeping them, too. But all the others are going to more worthy finishers. When possible, I'm including the pattern with the project so that someone else can make an informed decision about finishing versus ripping. But really, that's just up to them. Because I can't go on with this giant mess!